![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sekritomgContinued from here.
“Are you still wearing those faggy sunglasses?” Cartman asked when he walked into brunch. Unusually prompt, he found Kyle sitting by himself at the dining room table drinking coffee, and bent over to antagonize his newest client.
Although Kyle could not see Cartman’s breath fogging his sunglasses, he could feel it touching his lips and entering his nose, contaminating him. Cartman always smelled yeasty, like the 18 years he spent waiting at his mother’s feet while she baked in their yellow-tiled kitchen had set into his hair and sweat glands.
Shocked, Kyle tumbled off of his chair. “How did you get in here?” he squealed, trying to get his heart to stop pounding; he scooted on his behind away from where he thought Cartman was standing.
“Uh, your door was unlocked, Jew. I know, frankly I was shocked you don’t keep that thing quadruple dead-bolted or anything, but I figure it’s easier that way for hobos to wander in and rape you.”
“Normal people ring the door bell!”
“Eh, I don’t have time for such theatrics.” Cartman sat down. “Bring me a goddamn bagel.”
“In this house we wait for everyone to eat.”
“Well, tell your weepy houseboy to get his ass to the table,” Cartman said. “Tell him to bring me a cup of coffee with Bailey’s and a scoop of vanilla ice cream in it, too.”
“If you drink coffee like that you’ll have a fucking coronary, Cartman.”
“I don’t give a crap.” Cartman looked down to Kyle. “Okay, I know rolling around on the floor is a natural environment for you, but are you ever going to get up off your ass and get Stan and serve me some breakfast?”
“It’s not breakfast, it’s brunch.” To this Cartman shuddered. “And I’m not just talking about Stan! We have to wait for Kenny and Butters. It’s only polite. Or don’t you see five settings at the table?”
“Well, I can; you can’t. Jew, I’m gonna level with you.” Bending down on one knee, Cartman sighed. Now he could talk to Kyle at face level. “I don’t care about those assholes. You want to feed me? Fine. Go get me a goddamn bagel already, Kyle, I’m seriously. Get me a fucking bagel.”
“No.”
“Come on, Jew. I’m hungry.” Cartman began to tug at Kyle’s shirt.
“Fuck you, no!” With half-hearted effort, Kyle tried to bat away his tormentor, to no avail. “Get off me, Cartman!”
“I hate you so much.”
“Get the fuck off me!”
“Get me a fucking bagel!”
“Stan!” Kyle shrieked. “Please bring Cartman a fucking bagel!”
At the kitchen doorway, Stan appeared, a half apron grazing his knees. With arms crossed, he leaned against the doorframe, scowling. “In this house we wait to eat until everyone is seated,” he said coolly. “As it is I’m up to my elbows in pickled herring.”
“See, that’s what I said.” Kyle inched ever closer to the kitchen doorway.
“Pickled herring?” Cartman stuck his tongue out. “Gross, Jew. That’s not food.”
“It’s called ‘appetizing,’ Cartman, and if you knew shit about food you’d know that.”
“It doesn’t sound appetizing to me.”
“Appetizing is a kind of food, you dolt,” Kyle sneered. “Not the adjective.”
“Whatever, Kyle.” Cartman hoisted his bulk off of the ground, not without help from the dining room table. “Like it matters.”
“Do you want a drink, dude?” Stan asked. He turned from Cartman to Kyle. “I mean, either of you?”
“Yeah, I want a fucking milkshake,” Cartman growled. “With a shot of vodka on the side.”
“I’m okay for now.” Kyle patted the carpet around him. “But could you help me get up off the floor?”
Stan hoisted him by his armpits, and led him back to the chair he’d fallen off of when Cartman arrived. “Anything else I can do?” Stan ruffled Kyle’s hair; Kyle needed a trim, and his soft, twisty mop of coppery hair was beginning to become unruly, with errant curls popping off of his head and out from behind his ears. Stan set one or two strands back into place. “No arguing,” Stan cautioned. “I mean it, Cartman. Behave like an adult or you’re out of our house for good.”
“Treat me like a fucking king or you’re out of your medical coverage for good,” Cartman countered.
“That is a good point,” Kyle mused.
“Ha! Like I believe him that he’d give up good money just because I’m not going to make him a damn milkshake.” (In a rare moment of guilt, Cartman had conceded to offer a half-off discount. But he wouldn’t comp them. Something about ‘breaking [his] balls.’)
“You’d be surprised.”
Kyle sighed. “Don’t test him, Stan. I need those eyes.”
Stan knocked his boot against the doorframe. “One milkshake, coming up.” He disappeared back into the kitchen, apron strings trailing.
“Oh, they can fix your goddamn eyes for you?” Cartman asked. “The world is a fucking disgusting place. Why would you want to look at it?”
“As it happens, they can’t.” Kyle slipped his sunglasses from his nose, and folded hem neatly. He placed them in the center of his brunch plate: “As I am now, always shall I remain.”
“Oh, Kyle. Just when I am sure you can’t get any less pleasant to look at!”
“They’re making me glass eyes. Two pairs, green and brown.”
“What is this world coming to?” Cartman checked his watch. “Hey, faggot!” he yelled to the kitchen doorway. “Where’s my fucking milkshake?”
“Have a little patience, Cartman!” Stan called back. His words were muffled (but audible) by the whizzing sound of the blender. “I’m working on like six things here!”
Cartman made a displeased face, his full cheeks taut.
The doorbell rang.
“Please answer that,” Kyle begged his nemesis.
“Hell no, Jew.” Cartman cracked his knuckles. “I’m your guest.” He raised his voice: “And where is my milkshake?”
On his rush to the door, Stan placed a highball glass with white froth in front of Cartman’s girth, which was resting pressed up against the edge of the table.
“And the vodka?” he asked, eyeing the glass with suspicion.
Stan whipped around to answer. “It’s in the shake!” He shot Cartman a pleading look. The doorbell chimed a second time. “Just try it.” Stan slouched from the room, defeated, only to return with Butters, whose aqua-colored scrubs were wrinkled and in whose arms was a large arrangement of stargazer lilies. The flowers were violent pink toward the middle and their petals were tinged with white at the edges; several turgid buds, green and greenish-white, were yet to blossom.
“Hey, Eric!” Butters cheered, setting his vase on the table. “Long time no see.”
“Shut up, Butters. I’ve seen enough of you to last me a lifetime.” He sniffed. “Unlike Kyle, who can’t see at all.”
“Hi, Butters.” Kyle raised his head, searching out the sound of Butters’ voice.
“Hey, Kyle!” After rushing to his side, Butters pressed his cheek to Kyle’s and wrapped clasped his hands around Kyle’s shoulders. “How are you feeling?”
Butters’ lips smacked audibly against pale skin as Kyle pushed him away. “Fine,” Kyle said. “Life sucks.”
“That’s bad to hear.” Butters shifted the bouquet, avoiding place settings, so it was in Kyle’s face. “I bought you some flowers!”
“Thanks, Butters.” Kyle’s voice was limp. “I’ll think about how much I might have enjoyed looking at them.”
“Butters, you dumb ass.” Cartman smacked his own forehead. “How many times do I have to tell you? If you’re going to taunt someone, you have to bring them something they like that they can’t enjoy, not gay-ass flowers.”
“I thought Kyle would like flowers.”
“Hmmm.” Cartman pressed a finger to his lips. “It’s true, he is pretty gay.”
“Oh, like you’re not?”
“They’re smelly flowers.” Butters plucked a stargazer lily from its vase. “I thought you might like smelling them. They got a nice scent.”
Breaking the stem off the lily, Butters tucked it into Kyle’s hair, balanced behind his ear. Kyle clawed at the weight, unable to brush it away.
“A pretty flower for a pretty boy,” Butters cooed, clasping his hands. “And you smell like lilies, too!”
“I’m blind, Butters,” Kyle growled. He managed to knock the flower from his hair, and it fell to the floor. “Not a fucking cat.”
“Oh, but you look like a sparkling princess. Keep the flower, Kyle. Maybe the other ballerinas will be jealous of you.” Cartman took a first, long-delayed sip of his vodka milkshake. He smacked his lips, foam lingering. “Hey, this is pretty good.”
Stan brought a tray of bagels out from the kitchen, and set it on the table. “Nobody eat anything,” he instructed. “Let’s wait for Kenny.” He glanced down at the floor. “What is a lily doing on the floor?” he asked.
“I’m eating already. Fuck you bitches.” Cartman grabbed for an egg bagel, a glossy, earthy yellow with cracks where the crust had split in baking.
“I wish you’d wait for Kenny,” Kyle sighed. “Politeness is such a virtue.”
Cartman shrugged, chewing his bagel. The rest of them waited 40 minutes.
~
When Kenny arrived he crept up behind Butters, and smacked him on the ass so hard Butters hissed in pain and hopped up into the air.
“Hey Slutters! Long time no see.”
“Holy smokes!” Butters cried when he landed a split second later. “Kenny, I asked you not to call me that!”
“Aw, you like it.”
“No, I don’t.”
“Where the fuck were you?” Stan asked. He was slumped over his plate, head in his hands, eyes heavy with the boredom of hunger.
Kenny took a seat, wedged in between Butters and Cartman, the latter’s plate already littered with smears of cream cheese and scraps of bagel remains. “I met a sailor on shore leave at church. Did some bending at the knees, made out with his peen, you know the drill. In the confessional. That was hot. What’s for breakfast?”
“It’s brunch,” Stan corrected. Cartman shuddered at the term.
“There is no way in hell you actually go to church,” Kyle said.
Kenny nodded. “Of course I do, every single Sunday.”
“I think that’s very honorable.”
“Thanks, Butters.”
Butters reached over and slapped Kenny across the face.
“Ow! What was that for?”
“For not being honorable,” Butters said, voice dry and officinal.
“What’s the problem?” Kenny asked. “You said we were cool!”
“I am cool!” Butters huffed. “You’re the one who’s been avoiding me!”
“To be fair,” Stan pointed out, finally grabbing at a garlic bagel, “Cartman’s been ignoring you, too.”
“Since we’re all being fair, I want to be perfectly clear that I at no time ever told you I would call you back, Butters.” Cartman paused to eat a mouthful of cream cheese, spooning it directly from the container into his mouth. “Ew, gross! Is this chive? I hate you guys.” He tossed his spoon back on the table, where it landed in front of Kenny, who promptly put it into his own mouth.
“This is inhuman,” Cartman moaned. “There is no place for evil green vegetation in pure, unadulterated cream cheese.”
“Well, what did you think those little green specks were?” Kyle asked, looking pointedly at his own plate — or rather, hanging his head. “Can’t you just smell that it’s got chives in it?”
“Can’t say that I can, Jew.”
“I can’t smell it either,” Stan said.
Kenny popped the spoon from his mouth, clean and gleaming in the afternoon light of the dining room windows. “Me neither,” he said. “But I feel like if you lose one sense, your others get sharper. But, hell, I ain’t a doctor.” He glared at Butters, licking cream cheese off his yellow teeth.
“It’s plausible.” Butters shrugged. “But I’m no ENT guy, either.”
“Well, super, I look forward to a lifetime of simple pleasures, then, like smelling Stan’s seed drying slowly on the bedroom carpet, and the very inception of mildew.”
“You paint me as a very unclean person, Kyle.”
“I’ve been living with you for long enough to know, Stan. There is no escaping your beloved’s disgusting habits. You just find new ways to detect them and new ways to weather them.”
Kenny laughed, slapping the table in his joy and amusement. “You all make me wanna get married!” he cried. “Hey, can I get a beer or something?”
“Try a vodka milkshake,” Cartman suggested.
“Okay, that’s enough.” Butters stood up. “Kenny, if you don’t want to acknowledge me in public — or in private — or acknowledge what we had, or at least pretend we have a shot at still being friends, well, that’s your business. It’ll make me really sad, but I can’t force you. But when I leave you 16 panicked messages, begging you to call me, the least you can do is spare me three minutes of your unemployed life to pick up the phone and get back to me! Because godammit, Kenny — you gave me gonorrhea!”
“Ohhhhh. So that’s what that is.” Kenny shifted in his seat. The sounds of Kyle’s and Cartman’s laughter was not hindering him in the least. “Yeah, that’s been sort of bothering me.”
“And it at no point occurred to you it might be contagious?” Stan asked.
Kenny shrugged. “More important shit to worry about.”
“Like what?” Butters’ entire face was flushed. “You don’t do anything!”
“Wait, wait.” Kyle was still giggling, finger pads against his lips as he tried to stop. “Kenny, you’ve been spreading gonorrhea around Colorado because you’re too busy to talk to Butters on the phone for six minutes?”
“Every minute on the phone with Butters is like seven torturous lifetimes.” Cartman grabbed for another bagel, and while his hand was hovering over the pile, he also stole a second.
“And I’ve lived enough torturous lifetimes for anyone,” Kenny added.
“That’s not fair!” Butters began banging on the table with his spoon. “I am a good person and I’m sorry if I come off as torturous, but I didn’t do anything wrong!”
“Butters, dude.” Stan put a hand on Butters’ trembling shoulder. “Think very carefully about who you’re talking to, here.”
“If you ask me it’s his own fault for initiating the conversation,” Kyle said.
Kenny yawned. “This is so not the drama-soaked festival of delights I was hoping it’d be. Are you going to get me a beer, Stan, or are you going to make your blind boyfriend do it?”
“You can go get your own fucking beer if you want it so bad!” Kyle shouted.
“You guys know what would make this conversation like 50 times more ironic?” Cartman asked. “If one of you guys put on a George Michael CD. That’d be, like, super hilarious, and stuff.”
“How would that be hilarious?” Stan asked. “What about that would be ironic?”
Cartman shrugged. “You know, he’s like, George Michael, he makes everything ironic. It’s called the George Michael Irony Index Factor, if you put on a George Michael album while your weepy friend is complaining about how you gave him gonorrhea and won’t return his calls, that just makes everything about 30 times more entertaining.”
“You just don’t know what ‘ironic’ means,” Kyle said.
“Nuh-uh, I do too know what it means.”
“I don’t know what it means,” Kenny said. “What does it mean?”
“Cartman?” Stan pointed at him. “Tell Kenny what ‘ironic’ means.”
“I don’t want Eric to tell me, he always overcomplicates shit with flowcharts. Just you tell me.”
“I don’t want to.”
“It’s because you don’t know what it means. If you knew what it was you’d just say it.”
“Shut up, Cartman. At least I’m not throwing words I don’t know around and trying to get people to play George Michael records. Which Kyle and I don’t even own.”
“I think Alanis Morisette would be more appropriate,” Kyle said. “And so help me, fat ass, if you start singing, I will kick you in the face.”
“Oh yeah?” Cartman asked. “How’re you gonna see it without any eyes?”
“ ‘Ironic’ is when one’s expectations are incongruous with the results,” Butters huffed. “I mean, come on, fellas. You’re four of the smartest people I know — and I’m in medical school, remember — and none of you can define ‘irony’? And don’t give me the what-for with excuses, Eric. I’m calling your bluff. But I guess I’ve just been calling a lot of bluffs lately. But I guess we’re all blind to something.” Butters stood up; his crinkled scrubs were wedged into his crotch in a rather unflattering way; he untucked them, cheeks pinking, and said, “If you’ll all excuse me, I gotta use to the little boys’ room.”
Even before the bathroom door had shut, Cartman exclaimed, “What a little dipshit!”
“So what’s the difference between irony and sarcasm?” Kenny asked.
Kyle answered: “Sarcasm is specifically nasty, and I think irony is unintentional.”
“Why should we listen to you, Jew? You didn’t know what irony was half a minute ago.”
“Just because I couldn’t define it doesn’t mean I didn’t know what it was.” Kyle spoke his words into his own lap.
“So is it ironic that you were basically a traveling drug salesman, and yet we had to grovel to Cartman to get coverage for medical expenses?” Stan pondered.
Kenny waved his hands in front of Kyle’s face — a move which duly went unnoticed. “Wait, wait. There was groveling, and I missed it?”
“Dude, it wasn’t a performance,” Stan explained. “My insurance doesn’t cover Kyle. Do you know what a good pair of glass eyes costs?”
“And what if I’d needed surgery?”
“And Kyle doesn’t have any severance because he quit.”
“What was I supposed to do? I can’t see!”
“There are always options, Kyle.”
“Options shmoptions! No one wants to buy pharmaceuticals from a blind guy!”
“It’s called discrimination law!”
“It’s called you shut the fuck up, Stan!”
“I would like to submit ‘options shmoptions’ as the gayest thing I’ve heard at” — Cartman paused to visibly shudder — “brunch today. Ugh, sick. That word just makes me feel so dirty.”
“It’s the gayest thing I’ve heard all day,” Kenny announced. “And I gave a sailor a blowjob at a Catholic church this morning.”
“Well, there’s no need to brag,” Stan said.
“Oh, sure, just joke about going down on random servicemen.” Kyle was smearing cream cheese across a tear of garlic bialy intensely, occasionally spreading some across the tips of his fingers. “I won’t mind.”
“Kyle, you know I wouldn’t.”
“This is weak.” Cartman sighed and stood up; bagel crumbs fluttered from his red polo T-shirt. If Kyle had seen, he would have shrilled about it; Stan was glad that he hadn’t. “I need to take a crap.”
“Cartman!” Kyle snapped. A piece of smoked salmon pinched into a curl of bialy fell from his fingers. “I’m eating!”
“Whatever,” Cartman sniffed. “If you call mouthing on this Jew food eating.”
“Well, Butters is probably in the guest bathroom. You can use ours.”
“Ew! Godammit, Stan, I do not want him using our bathroom. Just make him wait!”
“Ey!”
“Just hold it for five minutes, Cartman,” Stan suggested.
“It’s not my fault Butters is taking his sweet time snooping through your medicine cabinet. He’s probably sitting on the bathroom floor reading all those knitting magazines and back issues of the Advocate you guys keep.”
“Oh my god, who’s knitting?” Kenny asked, suddenly very interested. “I’ve been meaning to learn.”
“We don’t subscribe to the Advocate.”
“On, for the love of Christ.” Kyle smacked his forehead. “Cartman, if you’re going to go, just go.”
“Thank you.”
And Cartman stomped away.
“Butters really is taking forever in there,” Kenny said, reaching into the dish of herring. “Maybe he got the door jammed or something. That or he fell asleep in your bathtub. You know he works, like, 18-hour shifts.”
“He could have just laid down in our bed or something if he was that tired,” Stan said.
“Enough!” Kyle pounded the table. “Why do you keep offering our bedroom to everyone?”
“I’m sure Eric’s making just an enormous mess in there,” Kenny teased.
“I didn’t even hear him go up the stairs.”
“Well, neither did I,” Stan said.
“But I feel like it’s the sort of thing I would hear.”
Kenny nodded. “Right, with your super-blindness senses overcompensating.” Then he laughed a cruel little laugh, sucking cream cheese and savory herring brine off of his right-hand fore and middle fingers. “Don’t you wish you knew what happened?”
Kyle sighed. “There isn’t any point in asking.”
“Maybe some old voodoo queen down in the bayou bought your eyes off the black market.”
“Oh, that’s feasible.”
Kenny rolled his eyes. “It’s South Park.”
Kyle nodded. Yes, that was an explanation. All the explanation he needed.
“Did you ever think about moving someplace else?” Stan asked.
Kenny shrugged. “I know the terrain. Who needs to relearn an entire ecosystem?”
“No oxygen, no atmosphere, no guardrails on the overpasses.” Kyle sighed. “Everything smells like pinecones and, faintly, of KFC.”
“God bless.” Kenny raised Cartman’s empty milkshake glass.
Stan shook his head. “But the views are spectacular.”
“Yeah, from Denver, where you can look up at the mountains and wonder who the fuck wants to live up here. Or from up in the mountains, where you can look down in the valley and wonder who’d want to live down there. I used to look around this town and all I could see were faded flannel shirts and the opportunity to go somewhere else. Now I feel kind of….” Kyle heaved his shoulders. “I don’t know, grounded. At least I don’t have to go anywhere anymore. … Ugh, who am I kidding? That was my favorite part.”
“Your favorite part of living here was leaving it?” Kenny asked.
“Isn’t that everyone’s favorite part?” Stan countered.
“I think I slept with our fourth-grade teacher last week,” Kenny replied. “But it was dark in the back of that movie theater, so who could tell?”
Kyle wrinkled his nose. “You make me sick, Kenny.”
“No, seriously, I’m gonna go check on Butters.” Kenny stood up, popped part of a bagel in his mouth, and talked through a mouthful: “Cartman I expect taking hours in the bathroom. It’s like his fucking briar patch in there.” He swallowed. “Butters maybe slipped and hit his head on the counter and now he’s bleeding out of his ears. Wouldn’t that be psycho?”
“You care about him just a little, don’t you?” Stan asked.
Kyle gagged. “Oh, please. You read romance in the stupidest places, Stan, like fabric softener commercials.”
“Fine, Kyle.” Kenny crossed his arms. “Yeah, I’m freaking soulless, and your heart is as big and bloody and soft and vulnerable as a 13-year-old girl’s twat when she has her first period.”
“That’s disgusting.”
“Kyle, let it go.”
“Come on, we made him brunch. And he was 40 minutes late!”
“Thanks for brunch, Stan. I really appreciate that you did the whole thing yourself with no help from anyone.”
“I can’t see!”
“Shit, you don’t have to tell me! You were fucking blind when you had eyes! Everyone knows you had laser corrective surgery.”
“That wasn’t me! That was Cartman!”
“Kenny.” Stan sighed, putting his chin in his hand, elbow on the table. “Just go check on Butters already, if you’re going. He’s probably just … being quiet.”
“Butters is so not ever quiet,” Kenny said. “If you were wondering.”
Kyle said, “I don’t know what’s going on here. If you’re going, Kenny, please just go.”
“Glad to.”
When he was gone, Stan grabbed Kyle’s hand under the table and shrugged. “Don’t take those guys so seriously,” he said. “I don’t mind making brunch. I like brunch. I’m just sad my frittata didn’t work out.”
“It’s not your fault.” Kyle patted Stan’s hand in reassurance. “I don’t think eggs and chocolate go well.”
“I tried.”
“I know.”
“That vodka milkshake was delicious. Do you want one? I feel like I want one.”
“Yeah.” Kyle nodded. “That’d be nice. I’d like that.”
“Sure.” Stan stood and stretched, arms over his head, his T-shirt pulling up to reveal his navel, circled with seductive wisps of black hair which dissipated up his torso. Only when Stan glanced back down to see that Kyle wasn’t watching him preen did he realize that it was all pointless. His face felt hot, and he tugged his shirt back down by the hem. “Okay,” he said. “Life goes on.”
“Huh?”
“Nothing.”
Over the sound of ice cream and vodka being sliced together in a blender, a loud thud, a shriek, and a shout of “I’ll kill you!” made Kyle jump in his seat, and Stan poke his head out of the kitchen.
“What the fuck?” he asked.
“I don’t know,” Kyle replied.
~
Stan gave both Kenny and Cartman a bundle of ice cubes wrapped in gauzy paper towels, sealed in plastic sandwich bags. Then he kicked them both out of the house.
“Some friend you are,” Kenny remarked, spitting blood onto the lawn. “Kick out a guy when he’s had two teeth knocked out.”
“It’s too bad you don’t have insurance,” Cartman sneered at him. His formerly carefully combed hair was mussed, sticking up from his part in awkward fistfuls.
“Fuck you!” Kenny clenched a fist, ready to throw a punch. “Don’t you fuck with my bitches!”
“You have so many bitches, Kenny, you gotta leave some for the rest of us!”
“Same back to you with food and oxygen, fatass! I’ll kill you!”
Stan shut the door on their screaming match.
In the living room, Butters was sitting on the couch across from Kyle, staring at him expectantly, legs crossed, big watery eyes open wide as he gnawed his bottom lip. “I’m awful sorry,” he was saying. “I didn’t mean—”
Kyle waved his hands. “Oh, yeah, sure. You didn’t mean to get a blow job, that kind of thing just happens all the time, I can see how it would just sort of spontaneously—”
“I mean I didn’t mean to start a brawl. I really apologize. Honest.”
“Whatever, Butters.”
“I didn’t mean to make things bad for you,” Butters said. “I know you got a lot of stress, not being able to work and not — not knowing what happened with your eyes. But it’ll be okay soon, won’t it?”
“I don’t know. Maybe?” Kyle shrugged.
Returning from the washroom where he’d been washing blood off his hands, Stan collapsed in a club chair adjacent to the sofa. “Well, that’s done.”
“I’m really sorry, Stan,” Butters repeated for Stan’s benefit. “Honest. I know it’s rude to hook up in someone’s bathroom! This isn’t like me. I didn’t mean to make a fight start. Honest. But Eric just comes at you with those big brown eyes and he pouts so prettily it’s like—”
“No.” Kyle slapped his hands over his ears. “No more. One more word, Butters, one more word of that in my house and—”
“Oh.” Butters blushed, humiliated, which Kyle would have to discern from his breathy little apologies. “Okay. Sorry.”
Sitting up a bit straighter, Stan clasped his hands. “I have a question, though. Like, really. Why get yourself into this situation? With possibly the two most deplorable people ever, I mean.”
“Oh, Kenny’s not deplorable,” Butters argued. “He’s just confused. He needs like someone to tell him how it’s okay to be. I don’t think his mother ever taught him any manners. I just keep thinking, maybe I can help. Maybe I can be that someone.”
“Oh, good,” Kyle drawled, “a wannabe podiatrist with a savior complex.”
“And Cartman?” Stan prodded.
“Oh. Eh, Eric’s just pretty.”
“He’s morbidly obese!” Kyle exclaimed. “A morbidly obese gay conservative insurance salesman!” He stuck his tongue out, unsure whether Butters was getting his feelings on the matter.
“Oh, he ain’t conservative. He just keeps those magazines to pander to clients. ’Cause it’s rich people who’s Republicans, usually, and rich people buy insurance.”
“And the receptionist?” Stan asked.
“I think he’s sleeping with her on the side, if you want to know,” Butters theorized. “Not sure about that one. Just my two cents. The idea I get. I’m not a jealous type; I just don’t like it when people break their promises. Like one time I caught him and Kenny behind the post office when I went to mail my census. It didn’t bother me except that Kenny said he loved me, you know, but then he didn’t call me—”
“This is the most abundantly fucked-up situation I have ever encountered!” Kyle unsteadily got to his feet. He extended a judgmental finger — at Butters, he presumed — but he was actually just pointing at the window behind Butters’ head of dirty hair. “You disgust me! All three of you!”
After Kyle had stumbled upstairs (barking, “Oh, don’t help me! I’ll just fumble upstairs on my own! Maybe fall and break my neck but it’s fine because we have insurance!” when he reached the top without help), Stan moved next to Butters on the couch.
“So,” Stan said after clearing his throat awkwardly. “I think it’s kind of ironic that someone with no eyes thinks ménage a trois is abundantly fucked up.”
Butters nodded along with this sentiment. “Well, life’s not easy. But I think we do what we do because it’s worth it, right? Like one day I’m-a teach Kenny some manners. Then he’ll love me. … Then he’ll see. … Thanks for inviting me to brunch, by the way. I love brunch!”
~
“I brought you something.”
Kyle didn’t bother to sit up at the sound of Stan’s voice, but he did get up when Stan snapped the radio off.
“I was listening to that,” he bitched.
“You can’t just lie here listening to Ryan Seacrest all day.”
“I don’t have anything else to do!”
“Well, here. Like I said, I brought you something.” Stan placed a thick binder on Kyle’s lap. “Open it,” he said.
“No.”
“Aw, Kyle, come on.” Stan sat down on the bed. He sighed, opening the binder on Kyle’s behalf. “It’s a dictionary,” he said carefully. “Let’s look up the meaning of ‘ironic.’ ”
“Are you nuts?” Kyle spat. “Or just cruel? I’m—”
“Blind, I know.”
“What the fuck is wrong with you?” Kyle slapped at Stan’s shoulders to get him off of the bed.
Stan wouldn’t budge. “Nothing’s wrong with me. Just, come on. Pick up the book I got you.”
“What’s the point? I’m never going to read again.”
“Don’t talk like that.” Stan grabbed one of Kyle’s hands, curled up into a slack fist, fingers trembling. In a chivalrous pantomime, Stan brought this hand to his lips, and kissed each finger.
“Why are you doing this to me?” Kyle unfurled his fingers at the touch of Stan’s lips, and let his palm be brought down into the open book; pricks of paper brushed against the pads of fingers and the joint where his thumb met his wrist. “What is this?” Kyle asked.
“A book.” Kyle’s head was bent down, and Stan tipped it up with a finger, smiling, even if Kyle couldn’t discern it. “We’re going to learn how to read. Look at me, Kyle. I mean, listen to my voice. Even if you can’t see me, direct yourself to wherever I am. Don’t look away.”
“There’s no point. I’m not looking at anything! You could be anywhere in this room.”
“Don’t talk like that. I’m sitting right here.”
“But how do I know?” Kyle felt his eyes begin to sting. “It’s not that I ever felt my life was so great but at least I used to be able to look around at who I was and what I had. Now what have I got? I’m closed off from the entire world.”
“I’m not going to let you be closed off from the entire world.”
Arms wrapped around Kyle’s torso, biding his elbows to his sides. The room was cold and Stan’s hands clasped on his back were warm, but clammy.
“You’re not the entire world, Stan.”
Stan sighed; Kyle could swear he felt his chest heaving. “Perhaps not.”
The room felt small, which was constricting, but it was safe, too.
“Are you still wearing those faggy sunglasses?” Cartman asked when he walked into brunch. Unusually prompt, he found Kyle sitting by himself at the dining room table drinking coffee, and bent over to antagonize his newest client.
Although Kyle could not see Cartman’s breath fogging his sunglasses, he could feel it touching his lips and entering his nose, contaminating him. Cartman always smelled yeasty, like the 18 years he spent waiting at his mother’s feet while she baked in their yellow-tiled kitchen had set into his hair and sweat glands.
Shocked, Kyle tumbled off of his chair. “How did you get in here?” he squealed, trying to get his heart to stop pounding; he scooted on his behind away from where he thought Cartman was standing.
“Uh, your door was unlocked, Jew. I know, frankly I was shocked you don’t keep that thing quadruple dead-bolted or anything, but I figure it’s easier that way for hobos to wander in and rape you.”
“Normal people ring the door bell!”
“Eh, I don’t have time for such theatrics.” Cartman sat down. “Bring me a goddamn bagel.”
“In this house we wait for everyone to eat.”
“Well, tell your weepy houseboy to get his ass to the table,” Cartman said. “Tell him to bring me a cup of coffee with Bailey’s and a scoop of vanilla ice cream in it, too.”
“If you drink coffee like that you’ll have a fucking coronary, Cartman.”
“I don’t give a crap.” Cartman looked down to Kyle. “Okay, I know rolling around on the floor is a natural environment for you, but are you ever going to get up off your ass and get Stan and serve me some breakfast?”
“It’s not breakfast, it’s brunch.” To this Cartman shuddered. “And I’m not just talking about Stan! We have to wait for Kenny and Butters. It’s only polite. Or don’t you see five settings at the table?”
“Well, I can; you can’t. Jew, I’m gonna level with you.” Bending down on one knee, Cartman sighed. Now he could talk to Kyle at face level. “I don’t care about those assholes. You want to feed me? Fine. Go get me a goddamn bagel already, Kyle, I’m seriously. Get me a fucking bagel.”
“No.”
“Come on, Jew. I’m hungry.” Cartman began to tug at Kyle’s shirt.
“Fuck you, no!” With half-hearted effort, Kyle tried to bat away his tormentor, to no avail. “Get off me, Cartman!”
“I hate you so much.”
“Get the fuck off me!”
“Get me a fucking bagel!”
“Stan!” Kyle shrieked. “Please bring Cartman a fucking bagel!”
At the kitchen doorway, Stan appeared, a half apron grazing his knees. With arms crossed, he leaned against the doorframe, scowling. “In this house we wait to eat until everyone is seated,” he said coolly. “As it is I’m up to my elbows in pickled herring.”
“See, that’s what I said.” Kyle inched ever closer to the kitchen doorway.
“Pickled herring?” Cartman stuck his tongue out. “Gross, Jew. That’s not food.”
“It’s called ‘appetizing,’ Cartman, and if you knew shit about food you’d know that.”
“It doesn’t sound appetizing to me.”
“Appetizing is a kind of food, you dolt,” Kyle sneered. “Not the adjective.”
“Whatever, Kyle.” Cartman hoisted his bulk off of the ground, not without help from the dining room table. “Like it matters.”
“Do you want a drink, dude?” Stan asked. He turned from Cartman to Kyle. “I mean, either of you?”
“Yeah, I want a fucking milkshake,” Cartman growled. “With a shot of vodka on the side.”
“I’m okay for now.” Kyle patted the carpet around him. “But could you help me get up off the floor?”
Stan hoisted him by his armpits, and led him back to the chair he’d fallen off of when Cartman arrived. “Anything else I can do?” Stan ruffled Kyle’s hair; Kyle needed a trim, and his soft, twisty mop of coppery hair was beginning to become unruly, with errant curls popping off of his head and out from behind his ears. Stan set one or two strands back into place. “No arguing,” Stan cautioned. “I mean it, Cartman. Behave like an adult or you’re out of our house for good.”
“Treat me like a fucking king or you’re out of your medical coverage for good,” Cartman countered.
“That is a good point,” Kyle mused.
“Ha! Like I believe him that he’d give up good money just because I’m not going to make him a damn milkshake.” (In a rare moment of guilt, Cartman had conceded to offer a half-off discount. But he wouldn’t comp them. Something about ‘breaking [his] balls.’)
“You’d be surprised.”
Kyle sighed. “Don’t test him, Stan. I need those eyes.”
Stan knocked his boot against the doorframe. “One milkshake, coming up.” He disappeared back into the kitchen, apron strings trailing.
“Oh, they can fix your goddamn eyes for you?” Cartman asked. “The world is a fucking disgusting place. Why would you want to look at it?”
“As it happens, they can’t.” Kyle slipped his sunglasses from his nose, and folded hem neatly. He placed them in the center of his brunch plate: “As I am now, always shall I remain.”
“Oh, Kyle. Just when I am sure you can’t get any less pleasant to look at!”
“They’re making me glass eyes. Two pairs, green and brown.”
“What is this world coming to?” Cartman checked his watch. “Hey, faggot!” he yelled to the kitchen doorway. “Where’s my fucking milkshake?”
“Have a little patience, Cartman!” Stan called back. His words were muffled (but audible) by the whizzing sound of the blender. “I’m working on like six things here!”
Cartman made a displeased face, his full cheeks taut.
The doorbell rang.
“Please answer that,” Kyle begged his nemesis.
“Hell no, Jew.” Cartman cracked his knuckles. “I’m your guest.” He raised his voice: “And where is my milkshake?”
On his rush to the door, Stan placed a highball glass with white froth in front of Cartman’s girth, which was resting pressed up against the edge of the table.
“And the vodka?” he asked, eyeing the glass with suspicion.
Stan whipped around to answer. “It’s in the shake!” He shot Cartman a pleading look. The doorbell chimed a second time. “Just try it.” Stan slouched from the room, defeated, only to return with Butters, whose aqua-colored scrubs were wrinkled and in whose arms was a large arrangement of stargazer lilies. The flowers were violent pink toward the middle and their petals were tinged with white at the edges; several turgid buds, green and greenish-white, were yet to blossom.
“Hey, Eric!” Butters cheered, setting his vase on the table. “Long time no see.”
“Shut up, Butters. I’ve seen enough of you to last me a lifetime.” He sniffed. “Unlike Kyle, who can’t see at all.”
“Hi, Butters.” Kyle raised his head, searching out the sound of Butters’ voice.
“Hey, Kyle!” After rushing to his side, Butters pressed his cheek to Kyle’s and wrapped clasped his hands around Kyle’s shoulders. “How are you feeling?”
Butters’ lips smacked audibly against pale skin as Kyle pushed him away. “Fine,” Kyle said. “Life sucks.”
“That’s bad to hear.” Butters shifted the bouquet, avoiding place settings, so it was in Kyle’s face. “I bought you some flowers!”
“Thanks, Butters.” Kyle’s voice was limp. “I’ll think about how much I might have enjoyed looking at them.”
“Butters, you dumb ass.” Cartman smacked his own forehead. “How many times do I have to tell you? If you’re going to taunt someone, you have to bring them something they like that they can’t enjoy, not gay-ass flowers.”
“I thought Kyle would like flowers.”
“Hmmm.” Cartman pressed a finger to his lips. “It’s true, he is pretty gay.”
“Oh, like you’re not?”
“They’re smelly flowers.” Butters plucked a stargazer lily from its vase. “I thought you might like smelling them. They got a nice scent.”
Breaking the stem off the lily, Butters tucked it into Kyle’s hair, balanced behind his ear. Kyle clawed at the weight, unable to brush it away.
“A pretty flower for a pretty boy,” Butters cooed, clasping his hands. “And you smell like lilies, too!”
“I’m blind, Butters,” Kyle growled. He managed to knock the flower from his hair, and it fell to the floor. “Not a fucking cat.”
“Oh, but you look like a sparkling princess. Keep the flower, Kyle. Maybe the other ballerinas will be jealous of you.” Cartman took a first, long-delayed sip of his vodka milkshake. He smacked his lips, foam lingering. “Hey, this is pretty good.”
Stan brought a tray of bagels out from the kitchen, and set it on the table. “Nobody eat anything,” he instructed. “Let’s wait for Kenny.” He glanced down at the floor. “What is a lily doing on the floor?” he asked.
“I’m eating already. Fuck you bitches.” Cartman grabbed for an egg bagel, a glossy, earthy yellow with cracks where the crust had split in baking.
“I wish you’d wait for Kenny,” Kyle sighed. “Politeness is such a virtue.”
Cartman shrugged, chewing his bagel. The rest of them waited 40 minutes.
~
When Kenny arrived he crept up behind Butters, and smacked him on the ass so hard Butters hissed in pain and hopped up into the air.
“Hey Slutters! Long time no see.”
“Holy smokes!” Butters cried when he landed a split second later. “Kenny, I asked you not to call me that!”
“Aw, you like it.”
“No, I don’t.”
“Where the fuck were you?” Stan asked. He was slumped over his plate, head in his hands, eyes heavy with the boredom of hunger.
Kenny took a seat, wedged in between Butters and Cartman, the latter’s plate already littered with smears of cream cheese and scraps of bagel remains. “I met a sailor on shore leave at church. Did some bending at the knees, made out with his peen, you know the drill. In the confessional. That was hot. What’s for breakfast?”
“It’s brunch,” Stan corrected. Cartman shuddered at the term.
“There is no way in hell you actually go to church,” Kyle said.
Kenny nodded. “Of course I do, every single Sunday.”
“I think that’s very honorable.”
“Thanks, Butters.”
Butters reached over and slapped Kenny across the face.
“Ow! What was that for?”
“For not being honorable,” Butters said, voice dry and officinal.
“What’s the problem?” Kenny asked. “You said we were cool!”
“I am cool!” Butters huffed. “You’re the one who’s been avoiding me!”
“To be fair,” Stan pointed out, finally grabbing at a garlic bagel, “Cartman’s been ignoring you, too.”
“Since we’re all being fair, I want to be perfectly clear that I at no time ever told you I would call you back, Butters.” Cartman paused to eat a mouthful of cream cheese, spooning it directly from the container into his mouth. “Ew, gross! Is this chive? I hate you guys.” He tossed his spoon back on the table, where it landed in front of Kenny, who promptly put it into his own mouth.
“This is inhuman,” Cartman moaned. “There is no place for evil green vegetation in pure, unadulterated cream cheese.”
“Well, what did you think those little green specks were?” Kyle asked, looking pointedly at his own plate — or rather, hanging his head. “Can’t you just smell that it’s got chives in it?”
“Can’t say that I can, Jew.”
“I can’t smell it either,” Stan said.
Kenny popped the spoon from his mouth, clean and gleaming in the afternoon light of the dining room windows. “Me neither,” he said. “But I feel like if you lose one sense, your others get sharper. But, hell, I ain’t a doctor.” He glared at Butters, licking cream cheese off his yellow teeth.
“It’s plausible.” Butters shrugged. “But I’m no ENT guy, either.”
“Well, super, I look forward to a lifetime of simple pleasures, then, like smelling Stan’s seed drying slowly on the bedroom carpet, and the very inception of mildew.”
“You paint me as a very unclean person, Kyle.”
“I’ve been living with you for long enough to know, Stan. There is no escaping your beloved’s disgusting habits. You just find new ways to detect them and new ways to weather them.”
Kenny laughed, slapping the table in his joy and amusement. “You all make me wanna get married!” he cried. “Hey, can I get a beer or something?”
“Try a vodka milkshake,” Cartman suggested.
“Okay, that’s enough.” Butters stood up. “Kenny, if you don’t want to acknowledge me in public — or in private — or acknowledge what we had, or at least pretend we have a shot at still being friends, well, that’s your business. It’ll make me really sad, but I can’t force you. But when I leave you 16 panicked messages, begging you to call me, the least you can do is spare me three minutes of your unemployed life to pick up the phone and get back to me! Because godammit, Kenny — you gave me gonorrhea!”
“Ohhhhh. So that’s what that is.” Kenny shifted in his seat. The sounds of Kyle’s and Cartman’s laughter was not hindering him in the least. “Yeah, that’s been sort of bothering me.”
“And it at no point occurred to you it might be contagious?” Stan asked.
Kenny shrugged. “More important shit to worry about.”
“Like what?” Butters’ entire face was flushed. “You don’t do anything!”
“Wait, wait.” Kyle was still giggling, finger pads against his lips as he tried to stop. “Kenny, you’ve been spreading gonorrhea around Colorado because you’re too busy to talk to Butters on the phone for six minutes?”
“Every minute on the phone with Butters is like seven torturous lifetimes.” Cartman grabbed for another bagel, and while his hand was hovering over the pile, he also stole a second.
“And I’ve lived enough torturous lifetimes for anyone,” Kenny added.
“That’s not fair!” Butters began banging on the table with his spoon. “I am a good person and I’m sorry if I come off as torturous, but I didn’t do anything wrong!”
“Butters, dude.” Stan put a hand on Butters’ trembling shoulder. “Think very carefully about who you’re talking to, here.”
“If you ask me it’s his own fault for initiating the conversation,” Kyle said.
Kenny yawned. “This is so not the drama-soaked festival of delights I was hoping it’d be. Are you going to get me a beer, Stan, or are you going to make your blind boyfriend do it?”
“You can go get your own fucking beer if you want it so bad!” Kyle shouted.
“You guys know what would make this conversation like 50 times more ironic?” Cartman asked. “If one of you guys put on a George Michael CD. That’d be, like, super hilarious, and stuff.”
“How would that be hilarious?” Stan asked. “What about that would be ironic?”
Cartman shrugged. “You know, he’s like, George Michael, he makes everything ironic. It’s called the George Michael Irony Index Factor, if you put on a George Michael album while your weepy friend is complaining about how you gave him gonorrhea and won’t return his calls, that just makes everything about 30 times more entertaining.”
“You just don’t know what ‘ironic’ means,” Kyle said.
“Nuh-uh, I do too know what it means.”
“I don’t know what it means,” Kenny said. “What does it mean?”
“Cartman?” Stan pointed at him. “Tell Kenny what ‘ironic’ means.”
“I don’t want Eric to tell me, he always overcomplicates shit with flowcharts. Just you tell me.”
“I don’t want to.”
“It’s because you don’t know what it means. If you knew what it was you’d just say it.”
“Shut up, Cartman. At least I’m not throwing words I don’t know around and trying to get people to play George Michael records. Which Kyle and I don’t even own.”
“I think Alanis Morisette would be more appropriate,” Kyle said. “And so help me, fat ass, if you start singing, I will kick you in the face.”
“Oh yeah?” Cartman asked. “How’re you gonna see it without any eyes?”
“ ‘Ironic’ is when one’s expectations are incongruous with the results,” Butters huffed. “I mean, come on, fellas. You’re four of the smartest people I know — and I’m in medical school, remember — and none of you can define ‘irony’? And don’t give me the what-for with excuses, Eric. I’m calling your bluff. But I guess I’ve just been calling a lot of bluffs lately. But I guess we’re all blind to something.” Butters stood up; his crinkled scrubs were wedged into his crotch in a rather unflattering way; he untucked them, cheeks pinking, and said, “If you’ll all excuse me, I gotta use to the little boys’ room.”
Even before the bathroom door had shut, Cartman exclaimed, “What a little dipshit!”
“So what’s the difference between irony and sarcasm?” Kenny asked.
Kyle answered: “Sarcasm is specifically nasty, and I think irony is unintentional.”
“Why should we listen to you, Jew? You didn’t know what irony was half a minute ago.”
“Just because I couldn’t define it doesn’t mean I didn’t know what it was.” Kyle spoke his words into his own lap.
“So is it ironic that you were basically a traveling drug salesman, and yet we had to grovel to Cartman to get coverage for medical expenses?” Stan pondered.
Kenny waved his hands in front of Kyle’s face — a move which duly went unnoticed. “Wait, wait. There was groveling, and I missed it?”
“Dude, it wasn’t a performance,” Stan explained. “My insurance doesn’t cover Kyle. Do you know what a good pair of glass eyes costs?”
“And what if I’d needed surgery?”
“And Kyle doesn’t have any severance because he quit.”
“What was I supposed to do? I can’t see!”
“There are always options, Kyle.”
“Options shmoptions! No one wants to buy pharmaceuticals from a blind guy!”
“It’s called discrimination law!”
“It’s called you shut the fuck up, Stan!”
“I would like to submit ‘options shmoptions’ as the gayest thing I’ve heard at” — Cartman paused to visibly shudder — “brunch today. Ugh, sick. That word just makes me feel so dirty.”
“It’s the gayest thing I’ve heard all day,” Kenny announced. “And I gave a sailor a blowjob at a Catholic church this morning.”
“Well, there’s no need to brag,” Stan said.
“Oh, sure, just joke about going down on random servicemen.” Kyle was smearing cream cheese across a tear of garlic bialy intensely, occasionally spreading some across the tips of his fingers. “I won’t mind.”
“Kyle, you know I wouldn’t.”
“This is weak.” Cartman sighed and stood up; bagel crumbs fluttered from his red polo T-shirt. If Kyle had seen, he would have shrilled about it; Stan was glad that he hadn’t. “I need to take a crap.”
“Cartman!” Kyle snapped. A piece of smoked salmon pinched into a curl of bialy fell from his fingers. “I’m eating!”
“Whatever,” Cartman sniffed. “If you call mouthing on this Jew food eating.”
“Well, Butters is probably in the guest bathroom. You can use ours.”
“Ew! Godammit, Stan, I do not want him using our bathroom. Just make him wait!”
“Ey!”
“Just hold it for five minutes, Cartman,” Stan suggested.
“It’s not my fault Butters is taking his sweet time snooping through your medicine cabinet. He’s probably sitting on the bathroom floor reading all those knitting magazines and back issues of the Advocate you guys keep.”
“Oh my god, who’s knitting?” Kenny asked, suddenly very interested. “I’ve been meaning to learn.”
“We don’t subscribe to the Advocate.”
“On, for the love of Christ.” Kyle smacked his forehead. “Cartman, if you’re going to go, just go.”
“Thank you.”
And Cartman stomped away.
“Butters really is taking forever in there,” Kenny said, reaching into the dish of herring. “Maybe he got the door jammed or something. That or he fell asleep in your bathtub. You know he works, like, 18-hour shifts.”
“He could have just laid down in our bed or something if he was that tired,” Stan said.
“Enough!” Kyle pounded the table. “Why do you keep offering our bedroom to everyone?”
“I’m sure Eric’s making just an enormous mess in there,” Kenny teased.
“I didn’t even hear him go up the stairs.”
“Well, neither did I,” Stan said.
“But I feel like it’s the sort of thing I would hear.”
Kenny nodded. “Right, with your super-blindness senses overcompensating.” Then he laughed a cruel little laugh, sucking cream cheese and savory herring brine off of his right-hand fore and middle fingers. “Don’t you wish you knew what happened?”
Kyle sighed. “There isn’t any point in asking.”
“Maybe some old voodoo queen down in the bayou bought your eyes off the black market.”
“Oh, that’s feasible.”
Kenny rolled his eyes. “It’s South Park.”
Kyle nodded. Yes, that was an explanation. All the explanation he needed.
“Did you ever think about moving someplace else?” Stan asked.
Kenny shrugged. “I know the terrain. Who needs to relearn an entire ecosystem?”
“No oxygen, no atmosphere, no guardrails on the overpasses.” Kyle sighed. “Everything smells like pinecones and, faintly, of KFC.”
“God bless.” Kenny raised Cartman’s empty milkshake glass.
Stan shook his head. “But the views are spectacular.”
“Yeah, from Denver, where you can look up at the mountains and wonder who the fuck wants to live up here. Or from up in the mountains, where you can look down in the valley and wonder who’d want to live down there. I used to look around this town and all I could see were faded flannel shirts and the opportunity to go somewhere else. Now I feel kind of….” Kyle heaved his shoulders. “I don’t know, grounded. At least I don’t have to go anywhere anymore. … Ugh, who am I kidding? That was my favorite part.”
“Your favorite part of living here was leaving it?” Kenny asked.
“Isn’t that everyone’s favorite part?” Stan countered.
“I think I slept with our fourth-grade teacher last week,” Kenny replied. “But it was dark in the back of that movie theater, so who could tell?”
Kyle wrinkled his nose. “You make me sick, Kenny.”
“No, seriously, I’m gonna go check on Butters.” Kenny stood up, popped part of a bagel in his mouth, and talked through a mouthful: “Cartman I expect taking hours in the bathroom. It’s like his fucking briar patch in there.” He swallowed. “Butters maybe slipped and hit his head on the counter and now he’s bleeding out of his ears. Wouldn’t that be psycho?”
“You care about him just a little, don’t you?” Stan asked.
Kyle gagged. “Oh, please. You read romance in the stupidest places, Stan, like fabric softener commercials.”
“Fine, Kyle.” Kenny crossed his arms. “Yeah, I’m freaking soulless, and your heart is as big and bloody and soft and vulnerable as a 13-year-old girl’s twat when she has her first period.”
“That’s disgusting.”
“Kyle, let it go.”
“Come on, we made him brunch. And he was 40 minutes late!”
“Thanks for brunch, Stan. I really appreciate that you did the whole thing yourself with no help from anyone.”
“I can’t see!”
“Shit, you don’t have to tell me! You were fucking blind when you had eyes! Everyone knows you had laser corrective surgery.”
“That wasn’t me! That was Cartman!”
“Kenny.” Stan sighed, putting his chin in his hand, elbow on the table. “Just go check on Butters already, if you’re going. He’s probably just … being quiet.”
“Butters is so not ever quiet,” Kenny said. “If you were wondering.”
Kyle said, “I don’t know what’s going on here. If you’re going, Kenny, please just go.”
“Glad to.”
When he was gone, Stan grabbed Kyle’s hand under the table and shrugged. “Don’t take those guys so seriously,” he said. “I don’t mind making brunch. I like brunch. I’m just sad my frittata didn’t work out.”
“It’s not your fault.” Kyle patted Stan’s hand in reassurance. “I don’t think eggs and chocolate go well.”
“I tried.”
“I know.”
“That vodka milkshake was delicious. Do you want one? I feel like I want one.”
“Yeah.” Kyle nodded. “That’d be nice. I’d like that.”
“Sure.” Stan stood and stretched, arms over his head, his T-shirt pulling up to reveal his navel, circled with seductive wisps of black hair which dissipated up his torso. Only when Stan glanced back down to see that Kyle wasn’t watching him preen did he realize that it was all pointless. His face felt hot, and he tugged his shirt back down by the hem. “Okay,” he said. “Life goes on.”
“Huh?”
“Nothing.”
Over the sound of ice cream and vodka being sliced together in a blender, a loud thud, a shriek, and a shout of “I’ll kill you!” made Kyle jump in his seat, and Stan poke his head out of the kitchen.
“What the fuck?” he asked.
“I don’t know,” Kyle replied.
~
Stan gave both Kenny and Cartman a bundle of ice cubes wrapped in gauzy paper towels, sealed in plastic sandwich bags. Then he kicked them both out of the house.
“Some friend you are,” Kenny remarked, spitting blood onto the lawn. “Kick out a guy when he’s had two teeth knocked out.”
“It’s too bad you don’t have insurance,” Cartman sneered at him. His formerly carefully combed hair was mussed, sticking up from his part in awkward fistfuls.
“Fuck you!” Kenny clenched a fist, ready to throw a punch. “Don’t you fuck with my bitches!”
“You have so many bitches, Kenny, you gotta leave some for the rest of us!”
“Same back to you with food and oxygen, fatass! I’ll kill you!”
Stan shut the door on their screaming match.
In the living room, Butters was sitting on the couch across from Kyle, staring at him expectantly, legs crossed, big watery eyes open wide as he gnawed his bottom lip. “I’m awful sorry,” he was saying. “I didn’t mean—”
Kyle waved his hands. “Oh, yeah, sure. You didn’t mean to get a blow job, that kind of thing just happens all the time, I can see how it would just sort of spontaneously—”
“I mean I didn’t mean to start a brawl. I really apologize. Honest.”
“Whatever, Butters.”
“I didn’t mean to make things bad for you,” Butters said. “I know you got a lot of stress, not being able to work and not — not knowing what happened with your eyes. But it’ll be okay soon, won’t it?”
“I don’t know. Maybe?” Kyle shrugged.
Returning from the washroom where he’d been washing blood off his hands, Stan collapsed in a club chair adjacent to the sofa. “Well, that’s done.”
“I’m really sorry, Stan,” Butters repeated for Stan’s benefit. “Honest. I know it’s rude to hook up in someone’s bathroom! This isn’t like me. I didn’t mean to make a fight start. Honest. But Eric just comes at you with those big brown eyes and he pouts so prettily it’s like—”
“No.” Kyle slapped his hands over his ears. “No more. One more word, Butters, one more word of that in my house and—”
“Oh.” Butters blushed, humiliated, which Kyle would have to discern from his breathy little apologies. “Okay. Sorry.”
Sitting up a bit straighter, Stan clasped his hands. “I have a question, though. Like, really. Why get yourself into this situation? With possibly the two most deplorable people ever, I mean.”
“Oh, Kenny’s not deplorable,” Butters argued. “He’s just confused. He needs like someone to tell him how it’s okay to be. I don’t think his mother ever taught him any manners. I just keep thinking, maybe I can help. Maybe I can be that someone.”
“Oh, good,” Kyle drawled, “a wannabe podiatrist with a savior complex.”
“And Cartman?” Stan prodded.
“Oh. Eh, Eric’s just pretty.”
“He’s morbidly obese!” Kyle exclaimed. “A morbidly obese gay conservative insurance salesman!” He stuck his tongue out, unsure whether Butters was getting his feelings on the matter.
“Oh, he ain’t conservative. He just keeps those magazines to pander to clients. ’Cause it’s rich people who’s Republicans, usually, and rich people buy insurance.”
“And the receptionist?” Stan asked.
“I think he’s sleeping with her on the side, if you want to know,” Butters theorized. “Not sure about that one. Just my two cents. The idea I get. I’m not a jealous type; I just don’t like it when people break their promises. Like one time I caught him and Kenny behind the post office when I went to mail my census. It didn’t bother me except that Kenny said he loved me, you know, but then he didn’t call me—”
“This is the most abundantly fucked-up situation I have ever encountered!” Kyle unsteadily got to his feet. He extended a judgmental finger — at Butters, he presumed — but he was actually just pointing at the window behind Butters’ head of dirty hair. “You disgust me! All three of you!”
After Kyle had stumbled upstairs (barking, “Oh, don’t help me! I’ll just fumble upstairs on my own! Maybe fall and break my neck but it’s fine because we have insurance!” when he reached the top without help), Stan moved next to Butters on the couch.
“So,” Stan said after clearing his throat awkwardly. “I think it’s kind of ironic that someone with no eyes thinks ménage a trois is abundantly fucked up.”
Butters nodded along with this sentiment. “Well, life’s not easy. But I think we do what we do because it’s worth it, right? Like one day I’m-a teach Kenny some manners. Then he’ll love me. … Then he’ll see. … Thanks for inviting me to brunch, by the way. I love brunch!”
~
“I brought you something.”
Kyle didn’t bother to sit up at the sound of Stan’s voice, but he did get up when Stan snapped the radio off.
“I was listening to that,” he bitched.
“You can’t just lie here listening to Ryan Seacrest all day.”
“I don’t have anything else to do!”
“Well, here. Like I said, I brought you something.” Stan placed a thick binder on Kyle’s lap. “Open it,” he said.
“No.”
“Aw, Kyle, come on.” Stan sat down on the bed. He sighed, opening the binder on Kyle’s behalf. “It’s a dictionary,” he said carefully. “Let’s look up the meaning of ‘ironic.’ ”
“Are you nuts?” Kyle spat. “Or just cruel? I’m—”
“Blind, I know.”
“What the fuck is wrong with you?” Kyle slapped at Stan’s shoulders to get him off of the bed.
Stan wouldn’t budge. “Nothing’s wrong with me. Just, come on. Pick up the book I got you.”
“What’s the point? I’m never going to read again.”
“Don’t talk like that.” Stan grabbed one of Kyle’s hands, curled up into a slack fist, fingers trembling. In a chivalrous pantomime, Stan brought this hand to his lips, and kissed each finger.
“Why are you doing this to me?” Kyle unfurled his fingers at the touch of Stan’s lips, and let his palm be brought down into the open book; pricks of paper brushed against the pads of fingers and the joint where his thumb met his wrist. “What is this?” Kyle asked.
“A book.” Kyle’s head was bent down, and Stan tipped it up with a finger, smiling, even if Kyle couldn’t discern it. “We’re going to learn how to read. Look at me, Kyle. I mean, listen to my voice. Even if you can’t see me, direct yourself to wherever I am. Don’t look away.”
“There’s no point. I’m not looking at anything! You could be anywhere in this room.”
“Don’t talk like that. I’m sitting right here.”
“But how do I know?” Kyle felt his eyes begin to sting. “It’s not that I ever felt my life was so great but at least I used to be able to look around at who I was and what I had. Now what have I got? I’m closed off from the entire world.”
“I’m not going to let you be closed off from the entire world.”
Arms wrapped around Kyle’s torso, biding his elbows to his sides. The room was cold and Stan’s hands clasped on his back were warm, but clammy.
“You’re not the entire world, Stan.”
Stan sighed; Kyle could swear he felt his chest heaving. “Perhaps not.”
The room felt small, which was constricting, but it was safe, too.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2011-09-09 07:26 (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-09-09 14:18 (UTC)Thanks!